生产率冲击与经常项目失衡——基于新开放宏观经济学框架的研究

基于新开放宏观经济学框架构建包括异质性生产率冲击的经常项目跨期理论模型,并采用1991—2014年65个国家(地区)的数据检验了两类生产率冲击对经常项目失衡的影响。研究发现:国家特定生产率冲击会增加经常项目逆差,世界生产率冲击会提升经常项目顺差;国家特定生产率冲击的永久性和世界生产率冲击的非永久性是造成生产率冲击对经常项目产生异质性影响的主要原因。全球经常项目失衡主要归因于各国国内和国际实体经济,各国除了要加强国内经济结构调整以平衡本国经常项目外,还需通力合作来调整全球经常项目失衡,而非盲目实施贸易保护主义等措施。     

全球经济失衡的宏观调节机制研究

自上个世纪末以来,世界经济陷入持续失衡。全球经济失衡给世界经济造成了严重的危害,同时也引起了各国政府对这一问题的广泛关注。对全球经济失衡的宏观调节机制进行研究,研究结果表明:财政政策、利率政策和汇率政策等宏观经济政策均对当前的全球经济失衡有一定的调节作用。     

全球经济失衡理论研究综述

随着金融经济全球化进程的加快,全球经常项目收支、国际资本流动,以及储蓄与投资关系的不平衡状况加剧,这种失衡的格局必然会对世界经济产生重大的影响。本文将对学术届关于全球经济失衡的研究进行归纳综述。     

金融体系结构差异与全球经济失衡研究

本文基于金融体系结构差异视角,研究全球经济失衡与各影响因素之间的作用机制.构建面板回归分析模型,并结合全球56个国家或地区1986-2012年的宏观经济数据进行实证研究.研究结果表明:第一,对于银行主导型国家,政府财政收支、净对外资产、相对劳动生产率、实际有效汇率、贸易条件,会对经常项目产生显著的正向影响;而相对人均收入、消费率、资本形成总额、贸易开放度、金融深化度,则与经常项目显著的负相关.第二,对于市场主导型国家,政府财政收支、相对人均收入、实际有效汇率、贸易开放度、金融深化度与经常项目呈显著正相关;而净对外资产、相对劳动生产率、消费率、资本形成总额与经常项目呈显著负相关.第三,无论哪种金融体系结构的国家,增加政府预算盈余,抑制消费需求和投资,提高实际汇率都会改善经常项目状况.     

区域经济金融合作东亚应对全球失衡的必然选择

东亚在全球经济失衡中的角色 全球经济失衡最显著的特征在于美国国际收支表中巨额的经常项目逆差——2005年美国经常项目逆差达到8049亿美元,占美国GDP的6．5％,相当于全球主要顺差国顺差总额的四分之三,而且这一比重有进一步扩大的趋势。持续的经常项目逆差已经导致美国外债的持续增长。美国的净对外债务余额（即海外净资产为负数）从1996年的3600亿美元升至2005年的超过3万亿美元。东亚国家则是全球经济失衡的另一极。     

全球经济失衡对中国经济的利弊分析

自"全球经济失衡"被提出以来,就备受国内外专家学者的关注,2008年经济危机以后,关注程度更是有增无减。本文重点从利与弊两方面探讨在当前新形势下,全球经济失衡对中国经济的影响。     

新型国际分工对全球失衡可持续性的影响

随着全球失衡的不断加剧，经常项目的可持续性逐渐受到更多人的关注。因为经常项目的调整、尤其是赤字的调整往往伴随着货币贬值、经济下滑等代价，人们认为目前的失衡局面背后隐藏着巨大的风险。本文试图通过经验研究寻找近年来经常项目可持续性的规律和特点。经常项目赤字逆转较为平均地分布在1970年至今。从probit模型回归结果看，除了经常项目余额、经济增长等常见影响因素外，影响国际产业分工的金融与制造业的比较优势也是预测经常项目可持续性的重要因素。一国金融产业相对于制造业的比较优势越大，该国发生经常项目赤字逆转的可能性就越小．说明虽然金融业的发达让一国更容易背负赤字，但是这种优势也让该国有一定不急于调整经常项目赤字的“特权”，这也是造成经常项目失衡长时间存在的重要原因。     

R&D基础研究与中国经济增长的实证研究

本文在分析了我国近年来基础研究投入现状的同时,运用1995年-2013年的相关数据,对我国基础研究投入对经济增长的影响进行实证检验。实证结果表明,R&D基础研究对经济增长具有推动作用。最后,本文将根据这一结果提出相应的政策建议。     

我国结构性货币政策效果评估及优化建议

国际金融危机发生后,为提振经济、提高货币政策有效性,各国纷纷推出各类非常规货币政策,给全球经济带来了一定的积极影响。在经济新常态下,我国央行创新地推行了定向降准、常备借贷便利和抵押补充贷款等结构性货币政策工具,旨在应对当前中国经济增速放缓和结构失衡的问题。本文研究了我国结构性货币政策传导机制和实施效果,并提出相关政策建议。     

全球经济失衡的原因及中国的措施分析

随着经济的快速发展,全球经济失衡现象也日益突出。现阶段,全球经济失衡已成为全球经济发展中最具有全面影响的事态。引起全球经济失衡的原因主要有:东亚储蓄率较高,美国的较低;美国经济的发展引起资产价格膨胀;美元在国际中的地位。全球经济失衡给世界带来了很大的威胁,作为一个刚刚进入全球经济体系的发展中国家,中国一定要加快自身经济的发展,并对我国经济结构进行调整,以期提高我国经济的抗风险能力。本文对全球经济失衡的原因进行分析,并提出了相关措施,使得我国的经济增长的可持续发展。     

Global Imbalances and Petrodollars

Oil exporters have run large current account surpluses. We explore oil exporters’ role in the global imbalances debate. Current account dynamics are estimated for oil‐exporting countries and the rest of the world. We find that fiscal policy has a much stronger effect on the current account of oil exporters than on current accounts of other countries. The current account adjustment of oil‐exporting countries is also faster. Fiscal policy of oil exporters can have a significant and speedy impact on global imbalances. The impact via the adjustment of exchange rates might not be effective.     

Der deutsche Leistungsbilanzüberschuss

Persistent and significant current account imbalances are often seen as one of the greatest threats to the global economy and a catalyst for protectionist tendencies. Germany is often criticised for running a high surplus. However, economists disagree about whether and to what extent the German current-account surplus is excessive and which policy measures could help to rebalance the current account. The authors argue that the German current-account surplus is a global phenomenon and hence requires in addition to economic policies that could stimulate investment activity in Germany an internationally coordinated approach. Taking into account the specific circumstances of a country, the WTO could act as an institutional framework to deal with global imbalances. In particular the WTO’s Trade Policy Review Mechanism could be further developed into a forum for coordinating members’ trade policy and for agreeing on reciprocal measures among members. The concrete design could be based on other established international mechanisms, such as the European Semester.     

Irrungen und Wirrungen mit der Leistungsbilanzstatistik

In the current crisis the current account surplus and deficit position of single member countries has been considered to be a key indicator of the internal imbalances of the eurozone. German current account surplusses are confronted with current account deficits in the GIIPS countries. But Germany’s current account surplus vis-à-vis these countries has rapidly declined since the outbreak of the global economic and financial crisis mostly caused by the drastic recession in these countries. Furthermore, the near-zero interest rate policy of the ECB has drastically reduced the interest payments from these countries to Germany.     

Comparative advantage,service trade,and global imbalances

The large current account deficit of the U.S. is the result of a large deficit in the goods balance and a modest surplus in the service balance. The opposite is true for Japan, Germany, and China. Moreover, I document the emergence from the mid-nineties of a strong negative relation between specialization in the export of services and the current account balances of a large sample of OECD and developing countries. Starting from these new stylized facts, I propose in this paper a service hypothesis for global imbalances, a new explanation based on the interplay between the U.S. comparative advantage in services and the asymmetric trade liberalization process in goods trade versus service trade that took place starting in the mid-nineties. First, I use a structural gravity model to show that service trade liberalization lagged behind goods trade liberalization, and I quantify the extent of this asymmetry. Second, I show that a simple two-period model can rationalize the emergence of current account deficits in the presence of such asymmetric liberalization. The key inter-temporal mechanism is the asymmetric timing of trade policies, which affects saving decisions. Finally, I explore the quantitative relevance of this explanation for global imbalances. I introduce trade costs in an otherwise standard 2-sector 2-country international real business cycle model. When fed with the asymmetric trade liberalization path found in the data, the model generates a trade deficit of about 5% of GDP. I conclude that the service hypothesis for global imbalances is quantitatively relevant.     

Ten Lessons from a Decade of Debating an EUBS: Robust Findings,Popular Myths and Remaining Dilemmas

The modern debate on a potential EUBS began in earnest around a decade ago, just prior to the onset of the global financial crisis. In the mid-2000s, current account imbalances and diverging unit labour costs triggered a new debate about transfer systems between euro area countries and, particularly, a European unemployment insurance.     

Trade Costs and Current Accounts

Are trade cost reductions a plausible explanation for growing global current account imbalances? I advocate that changes in trade costs affect trade and production structures, which is likely to affect national savings and investment. Explicitly adding trade costs à la Markusen and Venables into Jin's framework, this augmented model predicts that trade cost reductions affect the current account through changes in the industrial structure. Empirical evidence confirms that the interaction of trade costs and capital intensity drives current account balances. I also provide evidence that the response of current accounts to changes in trade costs depends on the capital intensity of production and on the depth of regional agreements on trade and factor mobility. Aside from the direct effect generally emphasised in standard macro‐level analysis, changes in production patterns could therefore be an additional channel of impact of regional integration on current accounts.     

Valuation effects with transitory and trend productivity shocks

Changes in asset prices of a country's foreign assets and liabilities (“valuation effects”) are commonly thought of as stabilizing: they counteract current account movements and mitigate the impact of the current account on the country's net foreign asset (NFA) position. This paper shows that whether valuation effects are stabilizing or not depends critically on the nature of the underlying productivity shocks. In response to transitory shocks, valuation effects are stabilizing; but in response to trend shocks, such effects amplify the impact of the current account on NFA position. These contrasting effects arise because optimally smoothing consumers respond differently to a transitory shock than to a trend shock to income. This theoretical result finds empirical support with G7 countries' data, and is illustrated by the pattern of external imbalances between the U.S. and other G7 countries since the 1990s.     

Heterogeneous effects of competitiveness shocks on macroeconomic performance across euro area countries

This paper considers how competitiveness impacts macroeconomic performance in 11 euro area countries. VAR models are estimated for the individual countries using quarterly data from 1995Q4 to 2013Q4. Besides unit labour costs as a competitiveness measure, the models include GDP, the current account balance and domestic credit. The empirical analyses show that changes in unit labour costs help explain GDP dynamics in the short and medium term in most countries, whereas they have little explanatory power for the current account balance or domestic credit for most countries. Overall, the effects of the unit labour costs vary substantially across the countries in the euro area. The heterogeneity suggests that policy measures aiming to improve economic growth, correct current account imbalances and ensure financial stability need to take country‐specific features into account.     

When Do Long‐term Imbalances Lead to Current Account Reversals?

We extend the literature on sharp reductions in current account deficits by taking into account not only short‐term determinants, but also the deviation of net foreign assets from their long‐run equilibrium level. First, we analyse the long‐term relationship between net foreign assets and a set of explanatory variables and construct a measure of imbalances. Next, we model current account reversals by incorporating this new measure and compare the predictive power of this model with the baseline specification that does not account for long‐term imbalances. Our new model has a superior performance in and out‐of‐sample, especially when we control for the sign of imbalances. We also find that low net foreign assets do not necessarily lead to sharp reductions in current account deficits; it is rather the situation when they are below their equilibrium level that triggers reversals. Finally, we document that our new measure of net foreign asset imbalances is important only for developing countries, whereas standard models perform well for industrial economies.